The Days After Weight Loss Surgery

On July 23rd, 2003 I had weight loss surgery performed by Dr. Naaman (now retired) It was in his words that most flawless surgery he had performed to date From beginning to end time in the operating room was only 45 minutes and was home in twenty-three hours after being admitted into the hospital.

I weighed in at 468 pounds at the time of the surgery and am 261 pounds as of today. Five years later keeping the weight off is very hard. Your body adjusts to whatever is thrown its way. So with weight surgery it takes your mind and body about 18 months to figure out how to store fat again. This is what the laparoscopic RNY Gastric Bypass surgeons call the honeymoon period.

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Living Life After Weight Loss Surgery

During this period is when you need to lose all the weight you can and get into the best physical condition you can achieve. After this eighteen-month passes your body will figure out how to start storing fat again with even the smallest amount of food. The body's software if you will has built in survival routines that are always figuring out how to survive any condition.

Walking and Sipping Gatorade were the doctor's orders for the first ten days. You are not really hungry anyway due to the surgery so its really easy to stay on course. The first week I lost 31 pounds walking about a half a mile a day and increasing to one mile by the end of the week. Do not even try mushy foods after the surgery. Yours truly tried a teaspoon of mash potatoes and pass smooth out for about one hour.

They give you a post surgery diet for a reason since your new stomach or pouch does not work the same way as your old stomach. It cannot release the natural enzymes to help breakdown the foods you could consume previously. So things like dairy, candy, and other certain sugars will cause great discomfort and anxiety when consumed.

The catch bottle that was another discomfort to experience it catches all the blood from the surgical wounds internally When it filled up I had to empty it and record the amount on a log sheet to give to the doctor on follow up visits. It came out with great pain (skin had attached to it) on the 10th day after the surgery.

Did I have any complications from this weight loss procedure? Nope everything to date has been great. I would probably have lost more weight but was not as active as I should have been. That short year-and-a-half time frame goes by fast and you have to fight to keep the weight off.

Yes you can stretch your new stomach-pouch out of shape - Today I should only be able eat a couple of bites of steak and potatoes and be full Well, I can say that a Big Mac value meal can be consumed in one sitting so you can fall back into old eating habits and gain all your weight back if not careful and stick to a daily regiment of physical exercise and watching what you eat.

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Joanna McKenna 6 years agofrom Central Oklahoma

Maybe there's a subconscious reason your body is working so hard to store fat again and making you gain back the weight? Some people have been known to use excessive weight to "protect" themselves from the trials and tribulations of everyday life or to make themselves unattractive to the opposite sex to avoid a repeat of heartbreak. Others, through past life regression, have learned they starved to death in one or more previous lifetimes and overeat to prevent the same thing happening in their current life. Just a thought... ;D

Austinstar 6 years agofrom Somewhere in the universe

What smart bodies we have! Oh, they are so efficient at storing fat. I'm looking forward to the honeymoon period.